


I Am The Hero Of This Tale

by AmandaCritelliWestphal



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, But he gets there I promise, Gen, He's gotta hurt before he can be happy, Light Angst, Personal Growth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-25
Updated: 2016-06-25
Packaged: 2018-07-18 02:42:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7296268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmandaCritelliWestphal/pseuds/AmandaCritelliWestphal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He wants so much. He wants to be Kenny. He wants to not have to fake his way through media and social appearances. He wants to not have to limit the part of him that wants to find happiness with another person to what’s socially acceptable for a professional athlete. He wants to not bury all his bad feelings in drinking. He wants to be happy in a way that he hasn’t been since he was seventeen. He wants hockey to be fun again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Am The Hero Of This Tale

**Author's Note:**

  * For [staranise](https://archiveofourown.org/users/staranise/gifts).



> Title from "I Am A Sunflower" by Ben Lee. Give it a listen. 
> 
> staranise, I hope I did this justice for you. Thanks to imamaryanne for the beta!

Kent’s been in Vegas for a whole year now. His team has won the Cup, he’s got a kick-ass apartment full of windows, and he’s never felt more alone in his life. He hasn’t heard a single thing from Jack since he left the hospital for rehab, but Bob keeps in touch, and Kent can’t help but feel both guilty and relieved about it. Bob’s not his father, but he’s the closest thing Kent’s had to a dad since his own split when he was four. Kent misses Jack-misses him intensely-but he’s so glad he didn’t also lose Bob when everything went to shit.

So a week after The Aces win the Stanley Cup, Kent sits on his couch and stares at his phone for a few minutes before pressing the speed-dial labeled ‘Dad Bob’.

“Kenny! Good to hear from you! How are you?”

“Hey, Bob. I got your voicemail the other day, thanks for calling. I’m tired, but okay,” Kent answers, familiar warmth filling his chest. No one in Vegas calls him Kenny. No one’s earned that right. 

“Why aren’t you out with your team, son? You’ve got better things to be doing on a Friday night than calling an old man.”

“I,” Kent begins, with no idea how to continue. He sighs deeply, the end closer to shuddering tears than he wants.

“Kenny,” Bob says, voice serious. “What’s that sigh about?”

“When does this get better? It’s been a year, and I’ve got a cup ring on my finger, but this isn’t home. This team isn’t family. This is everything I’ve ever worked for, and it’s nothing like I thought and I swear I’m not trying to sound ungrateful...” Kent stops talking, and the tears start coming. Because here he is, complaining about being a successful NHL athlete to the father of the man who should have been here in his place. “Christ, Bob, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“Kent Parson, listen close. There is nothing wrong with being homesick. These things take time. Every player is lonely starting on a new team. You just have to fake it til you make it. Go out with your team, even when you don’t want to. Go out and meet people. Put a smile on, sign autographs. After a while, it won’t be pretending anymore. What about getting a pet?”

Kent laughs, wetly, and sniffs. 

“Fake it til you make it. Yeah, I can do that.”

 

The next day, Kent goes down to the ASPCA. He’s looking for a kitten, something cute and small and fluffy, when he spots an older cat. She has an underbite and her fur is growing in in random patches, and she is, possibly, the ugliest cat Kent has ever seen. He takes her identification paper from the front of her cage and goes out front to fill out the necessary paperwork. He thinks maybe this cat needs him just as much as he needs her.

A month later, Kit Purrson has acclimated to her new life, and Kent is losing the battle against the fur she sheds everywhere. Seriously, he woke up with a cat hair in his mouth and she doesn’t even sleep in his bed. He updates her Instagram way more than his own. Vegas still isn’t quite home; The Aces still aren’t family, but here in his apartment with Kit he feels a little less alone.

 

He takes the rest of Bob’s advice, too. He goes out-to bars, to club openings, to UNLV basketball games. He smiles at women and buys them drinks. Sometimes he even leaves with them. He never, ever leaves with the men he occasionally hooks up with in the bathrooms of these clubs and bars. He very pointedly cultivates a certain attitude; laid back, drink in hand, unimpressed, slightly douchey. He wears sunglasses indoors, and he thinks that that sums up his “Kent Victory Parson” persona pretty well. And Bob was right. After a few years of it, it’s like he isn’t pretending at all anymore. And when The Aces win the Cup again, and Jack refuses to see Kent when he takes time during his Cup Day to go to Samwell, well, he can pretend that that doesn’t hurt either.

 

One December, Kent and the Aces play the Bruins in Boston and they lose, badly. Kent handles it badly, as well. At some point, he calls a cab, ducks out of the hotel, and is heading to Samwell before he can think to make a better decision. It is not Kent’s proudest moment. There were some good moments-a solid minute and a half where Jack has him pressed against the wall next to his bedroom door, hands and lips a callback to easier, happier times. But then Jack pulls back from the embrace, and then pulls back from Kent completely. He can see the moment where Jack’s face closes off, and so he pulls on his Kent Victory Parson mask and promptly begins to Fuck Things Up. 

He’s learned that sometimes it’s easier to be an asshole first than to wait around to be hurt. He hates it, but at this point, he doesn’t know who he is with Jack anymore. If he can’t play hockey with him, and if he can’t be Kenny with him, then who is he? He goes downstairs, mask firmly in place, and gets his ass handed to him by some short chick who rubs his face in her win by making him pose for a selfie afterwards. She has to call a cab to get him back to his hotel, and he’s too drunk to remember the trip or the lecture he gets once he’s caught coming back after curfew. He doesn’t remember much about the next few days, honestly. Every time he gets sober, he takes another drink. And even when he stops drinking so heavily, the mask stays in place.

His behavior doesn’t go unnoticed, and after being scratched for a game, he is quietly taken aside by management before being unceremoniously sent home from morning skate.

“I don’t know what the problem is, but you need to get a handle on it, quickly. You can’t start underperforming now. Take the day, get your head out of your ass, and get back into the game.”

 

He wants to call Bob, but he’s scared that maybe Jack has told him about his visit. He wants to get drunk, but he’s suddenly even more afraid of that. 

So he calls Bob again, and pours his heart out. He tells him about his visit to Samwell, about the shitty things he said. He’s pretty sure that at some point, he tells Bob that he is so fucked up over his son that he doesn’t know if he loves him or hates him. And Bob listens, quietly, until Kent wears himself out and is left, gasping for breath and so, so afraid.

“I won’t tell you that what you did wasn’t wrong, son.”

At that, at Bob calling him “son”, Kent’s lungs heave in a breath and his head swims. He hasn’t ruined this.

“I won’t say you weren’t wrong, but I do want to apologize to you. After Jack-well, after the draft, Jack got a lot of help. He put in a lot of work with some people, and they helped him. But Kenny, I don’t think anyone helped you.”

Kent argues that Bob has alway helped him. Even as a bratty teenager, Bob has been there. Bob was there for him after his first Cup win when the world was overwhelming and Kent had nobody else. Bob stops him.

“Kenny, what do you want? What do you really want?”

And Kent is a mess. He wants so much. He wants to be Kenny. He wants to not have to fake his way through media and social appearances. He wants to not have to limit the part of him that wants to find happiness with another person to what’s socially acceptable for a professional athlete. He wants to not bury all his bad feelings in drinking. He wants to be happy in a way that he hasn’t been since he was seventeen. He wants hockey to be fun again.

Kent walks into his first AA meeting the next night, hat pulled low, hiding his face, and hoping to hell no one recognizes him. He listens to people speak, and the urge to run, to flee from these people is nearly overwhelming. He’s never lost a job because of his drinking. He’s never beaten someone in a drunken rage, never wrecked his car after a night out. He isn't like these people. Maybe his drinking isn't as bad as he thought. Then he notices he's being spoken to.

“Would you like to share anything tonight?”

Kent almost throws up, but stands up and makes his way forward.

“Hi, I’m…” he trails off. “I'm not sure if I belong here. But if I don't stop what I'm doing and find a way to be better, I’ll end up here. And I really, really want a drink right now.”

He goes back, again and again, until it's as much of a routine as training. And in a way, he supposes it is. He spends time with the group, finds people he can call on rough nights. People he can hang out with; not a single one of them recognizes him, and if they do, they don't mention it. He is Kent, who has a problem with drinking and managing his emotions. He finds the more time he spends with the group, the easier his emotions are to understand and handle. He tells his story, the whole thing, one night at a diner out in Henderson. 

He looks up at the end of spilling every shitty thing he’s ever said or done or felt, empty feeling and so scared at what he’ll see on their faces. He expects condemnation, scorn. He sees sympathy, and understanding, and gratitude, of all things. And he realizes, suddenly but also so late, that these are friends. He has Friends, with a capital F, in a way that he hasn't, maybe ever in his life. So he cries, and then he laughs, and as he eats crappy diner pie with an excellent vanilla milkshake, his smile finally feels real. 

 

Kent announces his retirement at the end of the next season, after breaking bones in his left hand for the third time in his career. That's a convenient excuse, anyway. He's tired. He loves hockey, down to the marrow of his bones. But hockey has never loved him back, and if he's learned anything over the last two years, he's learned that he deserves to be loved in return. That if he pours himself out wholly to something, he needs it to be something that also fills him up. He's been smart with his money; yes he has a penthouse and a wicked sweet sports car, but he also has a kickass portfolio. He’s making his money work for him instead of blowing through it the way he's watched other professional athletes do. And that gives him an idea.

Kent goes to college. Not the traditional way, but he finds an online program that gets him a BS in Accounting and his certification as a CPA concurrently. And he kind of loves it. Numbers make sense to Kent in a way that makes him comfortable. Numbers are predictable, and not open to interpretation. He runs his plan by Bob the next time they talk.

“What do you think? I could work within the teams as like, a contractor for management. Teach their guys about investing, what mistakes to avoid making. Maybe do a class or something for rookies, catch them all at once before they go spend-happy. I'd rather do it that way than be the personal accountant for a dozen and a half individual athletes.”

“I think that sounds like a smart idea. I'm proud of you, Kenny. You’re taking care of yourself, and you're going to help a lot of kids who are going to be in the position you were learn how to take care of themselves. Going pro...I’ll not knock playing professional hockey. I'm not a hypocrite, it was the best job I have ever had. But the old guys like me, we didn't have anything else to fall back on. That you can have two careers, both doing something you love, being able to make an impact? I loved playing, and I love retirement. But you’re definitely doing this the smart way. This is a good choice, son. I'm glad to hear you so happy.”

Kent grins and doesn't try to suppress the warmth bubbling up inside of him.

“Thank you. Did I tell you I'm considering selling my apartment? Looking for something a little more me, this time.”

 

**ESPN Magazine, November 2016**

There's a light dusting of snow outside, and Kent Parson laughs as he carries in a stack of firewood. Gone is the party-boy image; backwards cap replaced by a knit beanie, UnderArmor tee swapped for a long-sleeved Henley. 

“It reminds me of back home, in a way,” he tells me, settling into a leather armchair close to the fireplace. “Living in Vegas, I missed the snow and the trees. But we get actual seasons up the mountain here.”

“Here” is Mt. Charleston, a town full of vacation homes, where Kent has chosen to make his year-round residence with his 'internet famous’ cat Kit and a three-legged puppy named Cassidy.

“I wanted to stay close to Vegas, to my friends and the organization,” he explains. “But I really didn't want to spend the rest of my life overlooking The Strip, y’know?”

Kent Parson’s abrupt departure from the NHL was cause of much speculation in the weeks and months following the announcement of his retirement, with rumors of substance abuse and burnout running rampant.

“I was a mess,” Kent says candidly. “I was incredibly lonely, I was depressed, and I was very close to developing a serious drinking problem.”

He isn't looking for pity, though.

_“I don't want to sound all 'poor professional athlete, boo hoo’ about it, but it can be incredibly difficult to be what I was, to be what these young guys are today. You're barely more than a teenager, and you’re suddenly living away from everyone familiar, with more money than you've ever had before, and the pressure to perform is astounding. It can be amazing, and there are moments where it is a dream come true. But it can also leave you very isolated and vulnerable. I made a lot poor decisions for a while and damaged a lot of important relationships.”_

Whatever his prior poor decisions, Kent seems to have made at least a few good ones.

_“After that last injury, I decided no more. I wanted to get out before I did permanent damage to myself, and I wanted to be able to have the life that I wanted on my own terms. I started playing hockey as a kid because it was fun, and I loved it. I still love it, but it stopped being enjoyable, and the sacrifices I was making just didn't seem to be worth it to me anymore. I know that’s crazy sounding, and probably sounds ungrateful, but I couldn't spend another season pretending I was okay with my life anymore. I wanted to be open. I wanted to be able to be myself, not the image of myself that I portrayed in order to play professional sports and everything that goes with it.”_

So who is Kent Parson, then?

He laughs at the question. 

_“Honestly, I'm still working on that. I'm a student, at the moment. My plan is to be a financial planner for professional athletes, and consult with the leagues and teams to help them make smart financial decisions so they don't blow all their money or have to play until their bodies are ruined because they have no other means of income._

_I'm also working with Jack and Bob Zimmermann to make the NHL, and hopefully professional sports as a whole, a safer, more inclusive place for all athletes, regardless of who they are and what they're dealing with. I firmly, unequivocally believe that had I gotten help as a young athlete, those bad decisions I mentioned never would have been made.”_

How do you feel about those decisions now?

_“I can't regret them entirely, because they've led me to this point in my life where I am now, but I do regret the time I wasted pretending everything was fine. We want to let these young athletes coming up know that there are resources for them, so they can be healthy inside and out and be the kind of athlete they want to be. That they can play and have a place to call home on their teams, no matter what they are dealing with.”_

Working Jack and Bob Zimmermann. How's that feel, personally?

Kent laughs and shakes his head.

_“I knew I wouldn't be able to sneak that by. It's great. Bob has been a big part of my life since I was a kid. I'd call him a mentor, but life coach might be more accurate. He’s talked me through some really hard times in my life, and been there for me even when Jack and I weren't close anymore. When I talk about how my choices damaged my friendships, my friendship with Jack is the one I regret damaging the most. We were both struggling with things, and I didn't know how to help him or myself. I had a hard time understanding his choices, and my reaction led to an estrangement, I guess you could call it.”_

Since signing with the Falconers, Jack Zimmermann has spoken openly about his struggles with anxiety and the impact it has had on his life, both on and off the ice.

_“We’re learning how to be friends again, and it's amazing. And I'm proud of him, for doing what he needed to do to be in a healthier position before signing to a team. I didn't understand it before. He’s going to do great things, and I'm glad to be able to support him. Honestly, I'm a little relieved I won’t have to play against him.”_

Kent’s puppy waddles over, barks, and proceeds to pee on the floor next to Kent’s chair. Kent looks mortified, and grabs a roll of paper towels and cleans up before starting to laugh.

_“I've had him for a week. We’re still working on house training, obviously. I wasn't even looking for a puppy, I planned on an older dog, but it was like when I adopted Kit, there was just this feeling that this was it, you know? He's had a rough go of it, though, and he wasn't getting much interest since he's missing a leg, which is so dumb. He doesn’t know he’s missing a leg. He’s still just as much of a dog. So yeah, he destroyed a bunch of Kit’s toys-she wasn't happy about that!-and sometimes he makes a mess in the house. But he's a good little guy. Every day he does a little better. Pretty soon he’ll be ready to take on the world.”_

The look on Kent’s face as he walks me to the door says he knows the feeling.


End file.
